The shark that killed a kiteboarder off Stuart this week was an 8- or 9-foot shark in the requiem family, a group which includes bull sharks and tiger sharks, a shark attack expert who examined the body said Thursday evening. Two bite wounds on the thigh caused the death of Stephen Howard Schafer, victim of the first fatal shark attack in Florida since 2005, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Burgess drove to the medical examiner's office in Fort Pierce on Thursday to examine the body.

By David Fleshler Staff Writer and Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report, June 28, 2005

Great whites and tigers are bigger, but the scariest shark people are likely to encounter in Florida is the bull shark. A bull was blamed in the fatal attack Saturday on a 14-year-old girl, bitten in the leg as she swam off the beach in Walton County in the Panhandle. Monday, a shark bit a teenager swimming in waist-deep water about 80 miles from the site of the other attack. Doctors amputated the boy's leg, and he is expected to recover. Unlike their larger, more notorious cousins, bull sharks are common in Florida coastal waters.

When her turn came to jump into the Intracoastal Waterway and climb onto an inner tube, Jessica Vaughn admits she was frightened. "I couldn't see the bottom," the 22-year-old Sunrise resident said Monday. "And I don't like murky water. " Minutes later, as she backstroked toward the tube, Vaughn's fears proved to be justified when a shark sank its teeth into her right leg below the knee. "It was like a punch in the leg," Vaughn said, seated in a wheelchair and clutching a stuffed dolphin, at a news conference at Broward Health Medical Center, a day after the incident.

LEESBURG -- Just when you thought it was safe to enter the water this summer, Gregory Hollen pulls a 3-foot bull shark out of Lake Griffin. Hollen, 20, caught the shark while using a plastic worm to fish for bass in a canal Tuesday night. "I just freaked out," said Hollen, 20. "I never imagined I`d hook a shark here." A neighbor, Mark Wertz, also 20, was on the opposite side of the canal and saw Hollen struggle to land the fish. He said he thought Hollen had hooked a big catfish and ran over to help him net it. "It really bent his pole way over," Wertz said.

Animal Planet's River Monsters series, which has chronicled fearsome species such as the piranha and the Nile crocodile, will air a segment filmed in South Florida's Indian River Lagoon. The lagoon, which stretches from northern Palm Beach County through Volusia County, attracts vast numbers of bull sharks to give birth, becoming a place “where unsuspecting water enthusiasts are faced with what could become a modern day Jaws,” according to the show's promoters. Bull sharks are known for their ability to tolerate fresh water, in some case traveling hundreds of miles up rivers.

Shark researcher Erich Ritter remained hospitalized Thursday after surgery for a shark bite he suffered while filming for the Discovery Channel in the Bahamas this week. Ritter, 43, is in the critical care unit at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where he cannot accept phone calls for about another four days. He is expected to recuperate at the hospital for another four to eight weeks, colleagues said Thursday. "His spirits are good," said Marie Levine, executive director of the Shark Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., where Ritter serves as chief scientist for the Global Shark Attack File.

They are the Goodyear blimps of the reefs, enormous fish with hearty appetites, tubby bodies and a fearlessness that brings them intimidatingly close to divers. The goliath grouper – known until 10 years ago by the politically incorrect name jewfish – has mounted an impressive comeback since all catch of the species was banned in 1990. For many fishermen, however, the comeback has been a bit too impressive, as these giant predators, which can reach weights of more than 800 pounds, tear fish off lines and compete with divers for lobsters.

Besides being a commercial lobster diver, David Earp is also one of the leaders in the fight against divers and dive operators who feed sharks. Almost a year ago, Earp helped write a proposal to ban shark feeding that was presented to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In February, the FWC voted to develop a rule that prohibits divers and snorkelers from feeding sharks in state waters. Earp's concern is that sharks that are fed by divers soon associate divers with food, which can lead to problems for divers.

Why, suddenly, are there so many bull sharks in one of Palm Beach County's best snorkeling spots? The theories are as boundless as the vast blue-green sea near Coral Cove Park, where shark sightings have closed the beach to swimmers 23 times since July. The most popular one, promulgated by a lifeguard and spread nationwide by the news media, pins the blame on the new artificial reef that county environmentalists are installing nearby. "It's definitely the reef," said Angela Tompkins, a hot dog vendor who sets up shop across from the beach.

They stand on the beach at night and reel in 10-foot great hammerheads and other big sharks. Now these anglers may find their activities sharply restricted in Delray Beach , the scene of several spectacular YouTube videos of the big predators being hauled ashore and then released. The City Commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a proposal to ban shore-based shark fishing within 300 feet of its public beach and within 300 feet of Atlantic Dunes Park. Mayor Cary Glickstein said the ban would protect swimmers from encounters with large predators that wouldn't normally come close to shore.

Patrick DeCarlo has caught a lot of sharks, but none of them gave him a fight like his most recent one. He and Ryan DeTombeur needed almost two hours to catch and release a 9-foot bull shark Sunday morning from the Pompano Beach Fishing Pier. "I couldn't believe it. It was unreal," DeCarlo said. "We struggled to bring that thing in. " DeCarlo, 26, of Boca Raton , hooked the shark at 12:26 a.m. and finally got it on the beach at 2:17. The shark measured 109 inches and DeCarlo estimated it at 400-plus pounds.

Florida always has attracted a broad spectrum of foreign critters, from spring breakers to pythons, to coyotes and Africanized bees. But in recent months a toothy tourist has appeared off the state's waters: the fierce and feared great white shark. Since January, there have been five reports off Florida of Carcharodon carcharias , the ruthless predator made famous by Steven Spielberg's 1975 film "Jaws. " The most recent was Tuesday, about a mile off Fort Lauderdale Beach, when after a two-hour battle fishermen hooked a 13-footer weighing nearly a half-ton.

A bull shark that was caught in the waters off Key West contained a live fetus of a baby shark with two heads, LiveScience.com reported. The deformed fetus, the result of an embryo that split into twins but stopped dividing, eventually died and was given to experts who just published their findings in a scientific journal. The full story can be found at LiveScience.com .

Thousands of sharks on their northern migration came disturbingly close to Palm Beach County beaches this week, leading to several closures but no reports of bites. Lifeguards ordered swimmers out of the water on Thursday at Ocean Inlet Park, just south of the Boynton Beach Inlet. Temporary closures went into effect earlier in the week at Ocean Reef on Singer Island, Gulf Stream Park and South Inlet Park. Ocean Rescue Lt. Brian McManus said the Ocean Inlet beach was closed after five sharks came within 10 or 15 feet of shore and many more were spotted farther out. Such closures are issued at the discretion of the lifeguards on the scene, said Dave Lill, the county's aquatics director.

Animal Planet's River Monsters series, which has chronicled fearsome species such as the piranha and the Nile crocodile, will air a segment filmed in South Florida's Indian River Lagoon. The lagoon, which stretches from northern Palm Beach County through Volusia County, attracts vast numbers of bull sharks to give birth, becoming a place “where unsuspecting water enthusiasts are faced with what could become a modern day Jaws,” according to the show's promoters. Bull sharks are known for their ability to tolerate fresh water, in some case traveling hundreds of miles up rivers.

To hear commercial fishermen tell it, curbs on fishing are leaving sharks free to prey on bathers. Scientists see things another way. They now wonder if overfishing of prized shark species is letting unwanted killers like bull sharks, implicated in several recent attacks, thrive as never before. Neither theory rules out the other. If both are right, it is possible that federal rules and commercial fishing practices are interacting in unexpected ways to create new dangers in coastal waters.

By David Fleshler Staff Writer and Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers and The Palm Beach Post contributed to this report, February 5, 2010

The shark that killed a kiteboarder off Stuart this week was an 8- or 9-foot shark in the requiem family, a group which includes bull sharks and tiger sharks, a shark attack expert who examined the body said Thursday evening. Two bite wounds on the thigh caused the death of Stephen Howard Schafer, victim of the first fatal shark attack in Florida since 2005, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Burgess drove to the medical examiner's office in Fort Pierce on Thursday to examine the body.

They are the Goodyear blimps of the reefs, enormous fish with hearty appetites, tubby bodies and a fearlessness that brings them intimidatingly close to divers. The goliath grouper – known until 10 years ago by the politically incorrect name jewfish – has mounted an impressive comeback since all catch of the species was banned in 1990. For many fishermen, however, the comeback has been a bit too impressive, as these giant predators, which can reach weights of more than 800 pounds, tear fish off lines and compete with divers for lobsters.

By David Fleshler Staff Writer and Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers and The Palm Beach Post contributed to this report, February 5, 2010

The shark that killed a kiteboarder off Stuart this week was an 8- or 9-foot shark in the requiem family, a group which includes bull sharks and tiger sharks, a shark attack expert who examined the body said Thursday evening. Two bite wounds on the thigh caused the death of Stephen Howard Schafer, victim of the first fatal shark attack in Florida since 2005, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Burgess drove to the medical examiner's office in Fort Pierce on Thursday to examine the body.